CS Monitor's Godfrey 'Budge' Sperling dies

9/11/13 5:41 PM EDT

Godfrey "Budge" Sperling, legendary journalist and long-time host of CS Monitor's breakfasts, died this morning two weeks shy of his 98th birthday.

Sperling was with the Monitor for 59 years, starting out right out of World War II where he was an Army Air Corps Major. He rose up the ranks from selling subscriptions door-to-door to chief of the Monitor’s Chicago, New York, and Washington news bureaus.

Sperling was best known for his Monitor breakfasts, started in 1966 as a place where Washington reporters would gather to interview a public figure in an on the record and "civilized" way. According to CS Monitor staff writer David Cook, Sperling hosted 3,241 of the gatherings over a 35-year span with guests such as Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan and Clinton along with five vice presidents and countless cabinet and congressional officials.

"Sperling brought to the sometimes-daunting task of lining up high-level breakfast guests the same relentless, highly competitive approach that characterized his reporting. While not the Monitor’s most elegant writer, no one in the bureau out-hustled Budge," Cook writes.

The family is planning a public memorial service on Thursday, October 10, at Knollwood Memorial Chapel, 6200 Oregon Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. A private burial will be held at Arlington National Cemetery.